Garden Fresh Tomatoes

I have mentioned that I am not a gardener. My mother is a gardener. She can make anything grow. I can make anything wilt.

My husband is not a gardener either, although his mother was another gardener who could make anything grow. She could snap off a small branch of any plant, take it home, stick it into a pot of dirt and it would grow into a beautiful, healthy plant. I think there's magic involved in there somewhere. If I stick a twig into some dirt it just dries up and dies...

So, in short, the green thumb gene seems to have skipped a generation. Only time will tell if our sons have inherited the magic touch.

Nonetheless, every summer we plant a vegetable garden. Not only do we boldly undertake this enterprise knowing full well that we have no talent for it. We also lack a viable water supply at our house.

We live outside of town, amid the olive trees (see blog title) and city water does not reach us. Nor does the sewage system, but perhaps that is best left for another blog post... Anyway, we have a cistern and every so often the big water truck has to come and fill it up with what they call "undrinkable" water, or water "not fit for drinking." Meaning, full of microbes and bacteria and all kinds of who-knows-what nasty stuff. So it's only good for washing the dishes and taking a shower with your mouth tightly closed. We have to buy our drinking water in bottles.

Last year my husband decided that we would drill for a well in the front yard. He hoped to hit an underground vein of fresh water. We found salty water. Each time they drill a hole it costs about €800. So, he decided to drill another hole. Not my idea of a good investment of our meager funds, but by the time I caught wind of hole number 2, it was already happening. Of course, this time we got saltier water. Hmmm...

If you're interested in seeing what an €800 hole in the ground looks like, check out my story about how my son got his foot stuck in it.

The cistern water is limited and expensive so we don't use it for the garden. But we have €1600 of "free" salty water out in the front yard, so that's what we use to irrigate the garden.

This year, who knows why, we only planted tomatoes. They sure are pretty, aren't they? I wonder how much they cost each if you divide €1600 by the number of tomatoes produced per day...

Spring Flowers

Our laurel bushes are struggling, but the weeds are doing just fine, thank you!

Fried Peppers

This is the Queen of "If It Ain't Easy, I Don't Cook It" recipes...nothing could be simpler.

First, gather and wash a bunch of green or red (not spicy) peppers. These are from our garden. They are not bell peppers, they're smaller and skinnier.

Next, place them in a frying pan with a couple of tablespoonfuls of preheated olive oil.

Add some cherry tomatoes cut in half, a clove of garlic also cut in half and salt to taste.

Cook covered at a relatively high heat until they soften to the consistency you prefer.

Serve warm.

It's that easy. And so delicious!

Bees Do It

We're not sure WHY we have pumpkins growing in the garden...WE didn't plant them...but there they are. Growing steadily day by day, putting out pretty flowers and attracting lots of bees (there are three in the flower in this picture). Unexpected bounty!

What does your Garden Grow?

Let me just say that I although I love having a garden and love harvesting and cooking our homegrown produce...I am not the gardener. The Fisherman is also the Gardener! He plants, waters, weeds, etc. Without him there would be no garden! But, that said, once the crop is ripe...I step in ready for action!

This pumpkin plant took over our garden this summer. She and about 10 of her close personal friends just sprouted up all over the place and started growing like crazy. She pulled herself up the fencing with aggressive tendrils that seemed to appear out of nowhere from one hour to the next. The funny thing is that we didn't plant any pumpkin seeds. The only thing we can figure is that the seeds were in the compost we use for fertilizer. I did throw that Halloween pumpkin in the compost pile last November...


Tomatoes, tomatoes, lovely tomatoes! Good for salads, good for pasta dishes, good for sauce... the generous tomato!


Welcome to the basil jungle! We have oregano, parsley and mint, too. Way too much mint...mint is another overeager plant...put in one tiny little specimen and it'll take over the garden!

It's late summer now, so this is all that's left in the garden. It's so hot and water is so scarce that only the hardy can survive at this point. Without air-conditioning we sometimes feel that way ourselves!

Tomorrow a recipe!